HARRISBURG, Pa., May 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 26,000 Pennsylvania jobs have been lost or displaced since 1994 as a result of the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute.

In 1993, before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect, the U.S. had a $1.6 billion trade surplus with Mexico, which supported 29,400 U.S. jobs. Since then, imports from Mexico have grown much faster than U.S. exports, resulting in large trade deficits that have displaced 682,900 jobs nationwide since 1994.

The trade deficit with Mexico currently totals $97.2 billion.

"Supporters of NAFTA argued in the 1990s that it would create jobs," said Stephen Herzenberg, Ph.D., Economist and Executive Director of the Keystone Research Center.

"Now we're hearing the same arguments being made to push a free trade agreement with South Korea. We should have a moratorium on all trade agreements until we have in place a real U.S. manufacturing strategy, policies to lower our trade deficit, and meaningful provisions to protect and raise international labor and environmental standards."

Of the 50 states, Pennsylvania ranks 20th in the share of jobs and 8th in the raw number of jobs displaced by the growing trade deficit with Mexico since 1994, according to the EPI report.

Nearly 61% of the U.S. jobs displaced — 415,000 of the total — have been in manufacturing industries. The manufacturing industries that have been most affected have been computer and electronic parts (22%) and motor vehicles and parts (15.8%). Other affected manufacturing industries include fabricated metal products (5.7%), apparel and accessories (3.2%), and miscellaneous manufacturing (3.3%).

Service industries that are supported by manufacturing have also seen job displacement, including professional, scientific and technical services (7.8%) and administrative and support services (7.4%).